bloody monday

if you read my previous post you may be wondering if i ever acquired any blood. the answer is "not really." but i did end up with a particularly bloody liver. not sure what animal it came from.

my boss wanted the blood so he could recreate the effects of a certain medical procedure. he explained the procedure and what was supposed to happen and all that, but he used a lot of medical terms which rather confused me. apparently, a patient is supposed to drink blue powerade before surgery so that if there is leak, the doctors/staff can detect it, ie. they will see blue mixing with red/brown/color-of-bodily-fluids. i showed him two websites where one can purchase blood, but he insisted that i could get it on the streets. well, he didn't actually use those words. i asked my friend who works for cryolife, my room mate who works at piedmont hospital, and my hockey team mate who works with animals if they could some how get me some animal blood, and i came up empty-handed. and apparently nothing is "in season," according to my brother who is into hunting. my boss said he'd settle for a bloody steak or other piece of meat. i knew i could do better than a juicy cut of beef, so as a last resort i went to an international grocery store that emphasizes fresh halal meat (closer to our office than the kosher deli and the asian farmers markets). i've never been in a place like that, and i didn't really know what to expect. i was half-way imagining them slaughtering the animals in the back of the store. actually, i was hoping that was the way they did it, so that i'd get what i came for (i was armed with a plastic container, just in case). anyway, i explained to the shopkeeper that i was looking for animal blood for educational purposes. she seemed insulted that i thought that she would actually have blood to sell me, but fortunately she laughed about it too. i told her i'd just buy a bloody piece of meat, whatever she had. so she went to the back and returned with a bloody organ in a plastic, explaining that i shouldn't eat it. free of charge, because i think she just wanted me to leave.